Welcome..... Bienvenue.... Willkommen.... Benvenuti.....
Bonjour.... My name is Alana and this is my story! I created this page as an easy way to share my memories with all my friends and family. Well, that and all my tour group members encourged me too.. Maybe because I took over 3000 pictures, but don't worry, I didn't put them all in here! This trip started about 5 years ago, no really, keep reading.. After my grandma died, my cousin Crystal and I were promised a trip to Europe with the income from the sale of her house. The trip would include the two of us and our moms, Connie & Linda. We planned to take the trip the first summer but something came up, same thing for the next year, and the next, and the next!! In the winter of 2011, we finally realized that noone had any conflicts during the 2012 summer and the planning began. We immediately realized how difficult the planning would be. My mom, Connie, has been to Europe a couple times and said she would do whatever we wanted to do so she stayed quiet. Crystal only wanted to go to Paris and I dreamed of Venice. Linda was flexible but had other requirements, like small mom & pop hotels. Living in Washington state I was quite familiar with Rick Steves, so I decided to take a peek.. Wow! All the hard work done? Surely I could convince them that this was the way to go! I should note that all four of us live in different cities (me outside of Spokane, WA; mom in Coeur d'Alene, ID; Linda in Yuma, AZ and Crystal in Tucson, AZ). This made it quite difficult to plan a trip but quite easy for me to sell them on a tour! We decided on the Best of Europe in 14 Days because it included all the major highlights on our must do list and fit our schedules well. I thought once it was booked we were off the hook, but I was wrong! Once I really started looking at the itinerary, I realized there was ample free time to plan for. The last thing I wanted to do, was waste any of my free time trying to decide what to do! So plan I did! The hours I spent pouring into books paid off and my free time was used to compliment my tour! The 18 days I spent in Europe created a lifetime of memories and I'm so happy to be able to share them with you.. Lets get started...